12/10/09 Invisible Animals

Since 1998, December 10 has been the International Animal Rights Day. Organizing events on this date has the purpose of reminding us that we share this planet with other animal species, who have the rights to live without being exploited by human beings. The International Animal Rights Day is marked all over the world and aims at making the animals more visible in their suffering and oppression.

This year, Animal Friends is presenting a short film on animals, made in Croatia. It can be viewed on a special website www.nevidljive-zivotinje.com and shows animals and their pain, which we often fail or even refuse to see.

The premiere will take place on Thursday, December 10, 2009 on Tito's Square in Rijeka, starting from 12:00 noon. A projection screen will be set up within a fully covered tent and Animal Friends will invite the visitors to peep through its small openings, straight into the world that remains hidden from our eyes and our conscience.

Visitors that show more curiosity will be given a brochure that has been published especially for this purpose, entitled Why Vegan? It offers additional information about the advantages of this non-violent and ecologically and medically beneficial lifestyle.

Every year, several dozen billions of animals all over the world are intentionally bred, confined, tortured, and eventually killed throughout the world because of human wantonness. Animals in Croatia are exploited in the same way as in the rest of Europe and the world. The film "Invisible Animals" has been entirely shot in Croatia and shows the truth that we refuse to see.

It is not true that animals in Croatia are "happy" or that our cows, for example, live on spacious pastures. Almost 80% of cows in Croatia are permanently tied and most of them spend their entire lives confined and chained up in stables. Other animals are not happier either than in other countries, quite on the contrary. Thereby we should not forget that, regardless of their treatment during their lifetime, all of them inevitably end up brutally murdered in a slaughterhouse.

The film "Invisible Animals" lasts only five minutes, but discloses the state on Croatian farms and households, showing shocking scenes from the everyday life of animals in Croatia. However, these "invisible animals" also convey a clear message of compassion, offering us a chance to see those living beings before whose suffering most people will close their eyes. The animals, who are the true protagonists of this short film, invite us to open our eyes and to choose a lifestyle that will take us to lead a sustainable life, both for ourselves and for all the other animal species.

Nowadays, animals are extremely oppressed by humans. Their rights as conscious individuals, who clearly wish to live their own lives, are entirely pushed into the background behind the purpose of human mass production. But we should not forget that Croatian fields were once full of peasants, who slaved away all their lives for the feudal lords. Not long ago, black people were slaves to the white in America, while in our region women were deprived of their rights with respect to men. We must see the link between various forms of discrimination and fight it on all fronts, including specism – discrimination on the basis of species.

Donald Watson, the co-founder of the Vegan Movement in England in the 1940s, believed that breeding animals on farms is extremely unjust. While visiting a farm once, he observed: "It followed that this idyllic scene was nothing more than Death Row. A Death Row where every creature's days were numbered by the point at which it was no longer of service to human beings... We can see quite plainly that our present civilisation is built on the exploitation of animals, just as past civilisations were built on the exploitation of slaves…"

The film on "Invisible Animals" was made by Ecostorm and co-sponsored by World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) and the website www.nevidljive-zivotinje.com is located on Iskon’s servers.

The brochure Why Vegan? was published in cooperation with Vegan Outreach and can be ordered for free from Animal Friends: www.prijatelji-zivotinja.hr.

For more information on animal rights and vegan lifestyle, please visit www.vegan.hr.

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Animal Friends is a non-profit, non-governmental organization, founded in 2001 with the aim to promote animal protection and animal rights as well as veganism, as ethical, ecological and healthy lifestyle.
Animal Friends Croatia is a member organization of EVU,
Eurogroup for Animals, ECEAE, FFA, IAFC and OIPA.